Our Board

Each year, Open House is run by a team of volunteer board members and group leaders.Contact us if you’d like to join the board or start a group!

2018-2019 Board

Tegan Hanna, President

Tegan was born and raised in Indiana. She moved to Grenoble with her husband in August 2015 after spending 5 years in the Dubai desert. She has fully embraced the expat lifestyle and loves being able to help build community. Open House is the perfect association to meet people from all over the world and enjoy doing life in France together. She has served on the Open House board since October 2015 in different positions and looks forward to serving this year as President.

Carl Lucas, Vice-President

Carl was born and bred in the Welsh coastal town of Llanelli and moved to Grenoble in August 2016 with his soon to be wife Ellen. Formerly a Regional Officer specializing in Employment Law for Unite, he has recently taken early retirement. Originally a qualified Engineer he enjoys golfing and is slowly but surely grasping the French language. Carl and Ellen joined Open House shortly after moving to Grenoble with the aim of playing an active part in its activities and is currently hosting the “Its Friday” social events to encourage members of OH to meet and mix with each other.

Sarah Leake, Secretary

Sarah was born in the UK, then moved to Italy at the age of 13. She returned to England for university which lead to her spending one year at the ESRF, here in Grenoble, where she met her now husband. Seven years later, after living in Switzerland for 5 years, they found ourselves back in Grenoble. Three and half years later with one set of three year old twins they are still here and loving it. Open House enabled them to meet lots of new people and especially for her, new mums. Sarah has served the Open House community in previous years leading leading the Tots group and looks forward to joining the board and being able to give something back.

Marina Basko, Treasurer

Marina Basko was born in the old town of Vyatka, Russia, then moved to Moscow after graduating from university to start a career in mass-media and marketing. She has worked as a radio presenter and journalist. For the last 9 years she worked in PR and marketing at one of the national TV Networks. She is married and has a son.

Jane Fabulet-Roberts, Membership Director

Jane Fabulet-Roberts is originally from Rouen, Normandy. For more than 20 years, Jane’s passion are education and live performance theater. After teaching and acting for several theater companies and, attending the Jacques Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris, she moved to Oregon where she founded a French Language theater company (Fabulations). Because teaching French as a second language was another interest, it was natural for Jane to combine these passions, successfully teaching drama and French in various schools during her 10 years in the US. She was also the Children’s program manager and a teacher for children and adults at the Alliance Française de Portland. She and her French – American family moved to Grenoble in 2014. She trained as a bilingualism specialist in order to help families and childhood professionals. She is also currently offering language improv classes and teaching French and intercultural studies at the American School of Grenoble.

Laura Lasaite, Technology Director

Laura is a hands-on mom of two little girls and a student at Grenoble Ecole de Management. A former clients and operations manager in banking industry in Lithuania, living in Grenoble since 2013, Laura has been an active member of several international associations here. She is happy to serve on board of Open House Grenoble, and after enjoying meeting people and organizing events as a part of Program Committee team in 2016/17, Laura is looking forward to learning more about technology.

Fanny Dufour, Marketing/Communications Team

Born and raised in Voreppe, close to Grenoble, Fanny is a marketing professional in the tourism & food industry. She loves anything related to nature – camping, hiking, the smell of spring as well as dancing, watching movies and cooking. After spending 8 beautiful years in Vancouver, she moved back to Grenoble in the summer 2017 with her Canadian husband and her two young children. She fully understands the expat’s life (joys and challenges) and loves being around people from all over the world. Fanny is thrilled to be joining the Open House board this year and looks forward to spreading the word about this powerful community.

Kate Owen, Marketing/Communications Team

Kate moved to Grenoble from London in January 2017 as a lifestyle change from ‘the big smoke’. She has over 10 years’ experience leading communications for various charities, government organisations and businesses in the UK. Kate loves running along the Isere, cooking and travelling across Europe. Her dream is to one day setup her own hospitality business in France.

Hélène Perrin-Gouron, Programs Team

Hélène was born and raised on the French Riviera. She is a screenwriter, currently based in France again after having spent some time in the US.

Gabrielle Col, Programs Team

Gabrielle and her family moved to Grenoble in 2016. She is the mother of 2 children and chose Grenoble for the international school and community and the skiing!! She is no stranger to moving around, having lived in Germany for 2 years prior to Grenoble, the Côte d’Azur for 7 years, and California for 12 years. Gabrielle previously worked as an Interior Designer both in California and France, and now with her experience of moving has set up her own Relocation business, helping people who move to the Grenoble area, find their bearings. She is also an avid photographer and specializes in portraits.

Lauren Eluard, Group Coordinator

Having always dreamed of living France, Lauren and her family moved to Grenoble from Denver, Colorado in 2014. This move has allowed her to take time off from her career working as a elementary district instructional coach with teachers and students for whom English is a second language and instead to focus on developing her own cultural and linguistic awareness. Lauren enjoys spending her time working on acquiring the french language, meeting wonderful new people from all over the world, traveling and exploring all over Europe with her husband and two children (who now run circles around her in French) and skiing in the beautiful Alps! After two years as the Open House Secretary, she is thrilled to be joining the Open House board again this year as the Groups Coordinator.

Jehan Lecocq, Children/Family Events Team

Jehan Lecocq was born and raised in Vancouver Canada and has been settled in the Grenoble region for 10 years. Originally a biologist, she converted to private ESL instructor and worked for the Isère school board until having her first son. Now a very busy mom of two munchkins she is looking forward to working on building strong ties with the Open house families and organizing fun events.

Olivia Swindler, Children/Family Events Team

Olivia moved to Grenoble in October of 2016 from Washington State. Olivia helps run youth programs and camps for students in France, and loves to connect people and create community. Olivia loves living near the mountains, and spends most of her free time hiking and skiing (or eating croissants and staring at the mountains and dreaming about hiking and skiing).

Caroline Walmsley, Newsletter Editor

Caroline, French / Scottish, is the Newsletter editor since 2016 and happy to continue in 2019…